§ § § - June 3, 2004
The triplets were healthy and thriving, from all appearances; their Apgar scores at birth had all been satisfactorily high, and Dr. Giese remarked that she'd never seen such healthy triplets in all the time she'd been practicing. She did, however, feel that it might be wise for the babies to remain in the hospital for at least another day, so that the doctors could be completely certain they were ready to go home. Leslie herself was discharged that afternoon, and Christian drove them to the main house, fingers drumming on the wheel all the way there. "Christian, why are you fidgeting?" Leslie asked.
"It seems odd somehow to be leaving without the triplets," he said. "I suppose, though, that it will be our very last chance to be just the two of us, Christian and Leslie, without children. From now on there are three entities depending entirely on us."
"True," Leslie agreed, slanting him a glance. "Are you glad they're here?"
"Very much so," Christian said wholeheartedly, and Leslie relaxed, a sense of relief overtaking her. "I'll be 46 in three weeks, you know. Maybe it was time I became a father, after a lifetime of having only myself to worry about." He grinned and glanced at her, pulling to a stop in front of the walk leading to the veranda. "Besides, I know how very much you wanted to be a mother. I think you got far more than you probably bargained for."
Leslie had to laugh. "I did at that. Well, come on, let's go see Father."
Roarke looked up and brightened when they came in. "Sit down, both of you! Tell me about those babies. Have you finally named them?"
"We sure did. They're going to be Susanna Shannon, Karina Skye and Tobias Lukas Roarke," Leslie said, lowering herself into a chair with gingerly care and watching Roarke's face as she spoke. Roarke paused and studied her in astonishment.
"It was what Leslie wanted to do—honor you, the man who raised her," Christian said with a smile. "The man who's going to be their grandfather."
"You hardly needed do that, Leslie," Roarke said, faintly protesting. Leslie grinned; she had never seen him look overwhelmed, as he did now.
"I wanted to," she said. "We had a terrible time agreeing on our son's name, but giving him your name was never an issue. The Lukas is for Christian's grandfather, and I happened to like the name Tobias. Christian practically went ballistic, but honestly…it's not as if he makes much use of the name himself."
Christian sighed good-naturedly. "We may go around and around on that for a while to come," he observed, "but after all is said and done, I can't do anything else about it. It's the name we filled out on the form that will be filed in town hall and the name that will be on his birth certificate. Tobias he is and Tobias he will be…but I warned Leslie that I don't want anyone calling him Toby."
Roarke laughed and agreed, "Very well, Tobias it is. I can see that you named one of the girls for your respective mothers, but where does the other name come from?"
"Karina is one of Anna-Kristina's names, one of a bare few I like enough to give to a child of my own," Christian said. "Leslie chose Skye because she thought it was pretty."
"It is indeed," Roarke said. "Since you two are here without them, I presume they are yet in the hospital."
"Under observation," Leslie said, nodding. "But they figured I was healthy enough to go home, apparently even in spite of the inverted-uterus incident. I still feel kind of sore, and I guess I will for a good while yet, but I'm okay otherwise. If Christian and I go on home now, maybe we can sneak in some extra sleep before the triplets come home and we have to learn to subsist on catnaps."
"Before you leave here," Roarke said, "I might suggest that you contact your friends and bring them up to date. I've already had several calls here, and I have no doubt that Princess Margareta has intercepted any number of telephoned inquiries herself. Make your calls from here, then go on home and sleep as much as you can. Leslie, you had a very long and difficult day, and you should try to rest and recover to whatever extent you can before you take the triplets home. And Christian, since you will be a vital participant in their care, you may find it wise to relax and take things as easy as possible."
"That won't be difficult," Christian said. "I slept rather fitfully last night in that chair, and some of my muscles are still aching. Go ahead, my Rose, make a few calls."
In fairly short order Leslie contacted her friends and let them all know how the situation currently stood, as well as telling them what she and Christian had finally named the babies. She called Maureen last, and Maureen asked, "Do you two need anything before you hibernate? I know you have Christian's niece and her servant there, but they could have overlooked something. And Brianna is dying to see the babies."
Leslie giggled. "She'll just have to contain her excitement a little longer. I don't think they'll be coming home till tomorrow at the earliest, maybe not even then. Depends on what the doctors think. Thanks so much for offering—if we do need something we'll give you a call and let you know. For right now, we're okay."
"Good," said Maureen. "Then go home and get rested up. In another day or two, sleep will be worth three times its weight in gold." They both laughed, then said their goodbyes and hung up.
"All right, then," Christian murmured and yawned. "It's off home for us, then. If you feel so inclined, Mr. Roarke, perhaps they'll allow you in to see the triplets. It seems only fair to me that they learn to recognize their grandfather."
"Perhaps I'll do that," Roarke said and smiled. "Go and get some sleep, and thank you both for stopping here. If you need anything at all, let me know."
Leslie managed to fall asleep on the way home, and Christian, yawning constantly, envied her. When he pulled into their garage and parked the car, he found a little lighthearted revenge in gently shaking her awake. "Come on, my Rose, we're home," he said with a grin. "If you want to sleep in a proper bed, you'll have to walk—I won't carry you."
"Why not?" she retorted, squinting wearily at him. "I just had three babies!"
Laughing, Christian kissed her. "Oh no you don't, Leslie Enstad! I grant you they put you in a wheelchair to check you out of the hospital, but you walked quite willingly into Mr. Roarke's house and then back out to the car again. It's too late to claim childbirth-induced infirmity." He laughed harder at the exaggerated pout she affected. "Tell you what, I'll let you lean on me, but that's as good as it gets."
"You're a slave driver," Leslie said, a grin of her own playing at her lips.
"I'm exhausted and my muscles are strained from trying to sleep in a wicker papasan chair," Christian shot back, finally making her giggles break out. "Look, believe me, I want to lie down on a nice comfortable mattress as much as you do, perhaps more—after all, you had the benefit of the bed last night. Let's get inside and update Margareta."
The sun was playing hide-and-seek with gradually increasing clouds, they noticed as they emerged from the garage, so Christian reached up and pulled the door closed, groaning loudly for effect as he did so and making his wife laugh again. They ambled across the driveway, up the walk and into the house—where they stopped short in startled amazement at the sight of four laundry baskets sitting in the foyer, all filled with baby clothes.
Margareta must have heard them come in, for she came hurriedly into the living room and laughed at her aunt's and uncle's flabbergasted looks. "Your friends appeared through the evening yesterday and dropped these off," she told them, "and even left notes so you'd know who was here." She did a sudden double-take. "Herregud, Uncle Christian and Aunt Leslie, you forgot to bring the babies home!"
Christian and Leslie laughed again. "No, we didn't forget—they wouldn't let us," Leslie explained. "They'll probably come home tomorrow or the next day. The doctors wanted to be sure all three of them are healthy enough to come home."
"Ah, I see," Margareta said. "Then it will give Ingrid more time to complete cleaning the babies' rooms and the bathroom they're using. I insisted she scrub everything so that it sparkles. Those triplets are not coming home to dirty rooms."
"She doesn't have to sterilize the place, Magga," Christian informed her dryly. "Don't push her quite so hard. Cleaning is fine; steaming the germs to death is overkill. If you work her that hard, soon we'll have to find a servant for the servant."
Margareta shrugged. "She's accustomed to hard work," she said dismissively. "It's what she expected to do when she agreed to come here. I just wish she knew English; she's no help at all with grocery shopping, and I've never really done it."
"I know," Christian muttered, rolling his eyes. His niece was competent enough, but when it came to groceries, she was hopeless. He'd had to accompany her every time she did their shopping. "Well, I do have one idea in any case. School has just let out for the summer, and I might be able to bring in a high-school student to help with that sort of thing so that you can learn to help care for the babies and Ingrid can do the cleaning chores. I'll have to call around and see if any of our friends have suggestions."
"What's available in the kitchen right now?" Leslie wanted to know.
Margareta goose-stepped over two of the laundry baskets to check cabinets and the refrigerator. "We'll have to go soon, perhaps later today," she said.
"We're sleeping later today," Christian told her. "We've been advised, by quite a few sources who should know, that we'd better get all the sleep we can before the triplets come home, for then we'll forget what sleep is. Is there enough for a meal for the three of us and Ingrid this evening?"
"Yes, it looks so," Margareta said a little uncertainly. "I really don't know…"
"I'll look," Leslie said and made a check of her kitchen before turning to Christian. "I think we'll be fine. I'm actually not all that hungry right now—I just want to go back to sleep as long as I can."
Christian nodded and yawned again. "Same here. I may wake up long enough for supper this evening, but I need to catch up on what I missed last night."
Margareta nodded and followed Leslie out of the kitchen. "We can take the clothes up to the babies' rooms, and you can tell me what you named them."
Christian grinned, stacking one basket inside a second and lifting them both while Leslie and Margareta each took one of the other two. "Your new cousins are named Susanna Shannon, Karina Skye and Tobias Lukas Roarke, in the order they were born. It took us a while to come up with Tobias' name in particular, but the girls' names were reasonably easy to agree on. Oh, my Rose…" He had spotted something in Leslie's basket. "What's in that box? Do you see it there at the end of your basket?"
"Oh, yeah, I do," she said, surprised. "Well, let's see." In Christian and Leslie's bedroom they set down the baskets of baby clothes and Leslie extracted the box, sitting on the bed and opening it. She gasped. "Oh, Christian, look!"
"Those will be perfect for the babies' portrait with us," Christian said, impressed, lifting out a tiny dress. It was a cheerful pink in color and had just enough frills at the hem and on the bodice to make it feminine; there was a second one exactly like it.
"Karina and Susanna will look adorable in these," Leslie exclaimed, delighted. "And look, Tobias will be just as sweet in this." Their son's outfit was a small pale-blue cotton shirt and blue pinstriped overalls.
"There's a note," Christian said and extracted a small sheet of paper, which he unfolded and read aloud. "Dear Christian and Leslie, these are for the triplets' first formal portrait with you, the one that will be posted on the royal family website. I hope you'll like them and want to use them for that! Love, Michiko."
The baskets, they discovered, came from Jimmy and Camille, who had contributed a large number of outfits that had been worn by David, Craig and Robin; Kazuo and Katsumi, who'd turned over all of Chikako's baby clothes; Tabitha and Fernando, who'd given them Cristina's and Ramón's babywear; and Nick and Myeko, who had donated everything little Dawn had worn in her infancy (Myeko, in her note, apologized for having long since gotten rid of Alexander's and Noelle's baby clothing). Christian and Leslie laughed at that and then looked at each other wonderingly. "Well," Leslie said, "one thing's for sure—we should have no trouble telling Susanna and Karina apart if they're wearing different outfits. If any of these are identical, it'll be pure coincidence."
"Exactly so," Christian agreed with another laugh. "I had been wondering how we were going to keep the girls' identities straight. It's not as if we can tattoo their names on their foreheads, after all." He grinned when she rolled her eyes and laughed at him. "Well, thank you for your help, Magga…if you like, you can e-mail the family and let them know what the babies' names are. Leslie and I are going to sleep."
"Well enough," Margareta agreed. "Will you write down the names for me? I want to be sure I spell them right. Herregud, it's so hard to believe I have three new cousins. They won't seem like cousins at all, more like nieces and nephews."
"That's what Anna-Kristina said," Leslie remarked, turning over the note from Jimmy and Camille and writing the babies' names on the back. "I have a feeling Susanna and Karina at least will be close to your niece Natalia…you've met her, haven't you?"
"Actually, not yet," Margareta confessed. "I had hoped to do that before the triplets came home and kept us all tethered to the house caring for them."
"Go and do it while we're sleeping," Christian urged her. "If you need directions to their house, just call them. Ingrid can have a break from cleaning for a while—I think that girl deserves to have a nice long nap, or at least some time to call her own. Your sister would never forgive you if you didn't go and meet her daughter."
"I'm sure of that," Margareta said with a snort, and her aunt and uncle laughed. "All right, I'll do that. Sleep well, both of you." They waved at her as she left the room, then put aside the baskets of clothes to put away later, changed into nightwear, pulled the blinds over the French doors and the window, and crawled into bed with groans of relief.
For the first time in weeks, Leslie found herself lying in bed facing Christian. When Dr. Hannaford had told her to lie on her side a few months back, she had specified the left side, for reasons Leslie had never remembered to ask for. Neither she nor Christian had been too happy with that, since it meant she faced away from him. Now they gazed at each other from their respective pillows, smiling sleepily at each other. "Do you feel strange, no longer being pregnant?" he asked.
"I feel a lot lighter," she remarked, and he snickered appreciatively. "It does feel kind of funny not to be pregnant anymore, but it's nice too." She yawned, producing one in him, and slipped her hand into his. "See you whenever we wake up."
"Mmmmm," he murmured, hitching himself closer to her till he could wrap an arm over her and rest his head against hers. "That's far better. I love you, my Rose."
"I love you too, my darling," she said softly, and fell asleep listening to his quiet, even breathing.
‡ ‡ ‡
They woke after dark, feeling a little disoriented and groggy, and studied each other with drowsy smiles. "Feel better?" Leslie murmured.
"Much," Christian said and yawned yet again. "Are you hungry at all?"
Leslie thought about it and was surprised to realize she was. "Yes, actually, I'm just about starving. Maybe if we get enough energy back after supper, we could even go back to the hospital and see the triplets. I really hope they'll let us bring them home tomorrow."
Christian grinned at her. "You know something? I hope the same thing! Well, let's see how we're feeling when we've eaten."
Margareta met them in the kitchen and grinned. "I didn't think you'd wake up. Look what Ingrid's done…she's made salmon cakes with tropical salsa. Mr. Roarke's cook might become very jealous if she hears about this. I didn't know that girl could cook."
"Don't you even know what part of the castle she works in?" Christian asked, sitting at the table with Leslie. "Margareta, I think you've underestimated that girl. I can understand it when she's put up against all the rest of the staff, but I'd have thought when you chose her to accompany you here that you'd have taken inventory of what she could do." He grinned at Leslie. "Arnulf would have been thoroughly disappointed in her, I think."
Leslie laughed and took a bite of one of the two salmon cakes on her plate, scooping up some of the salsa that lay beneath it and getting a very tasty mouthful of seasoned, breaded fish along with the sweet, tangy flavors of pineapple and mango in the salsa. "This is fabulous," she exclaimed. "I love it. Try it, my love, it's incredible." She caught Ingrid's eye across the room, beamed and nodded vigorously at her, and got a shy, grateful smile before the servant turned quickly away.
Christian took a bite and smiled broadly around it. "You're right, this is excellent…and I'm particular about my salmon, since it's my favorite fish. My only complaint is that there aren't more of these. I think I'll see if she can put together individual salads for us, to help round out the meal." He made his request in jordiska, and Ingrid curtsied in acquiescence, going swiftly about filling the order.
Margareta cleared her throat just as the meal was ending. "Uncle Christian, Aunt Leslie, would it be all right if I come with you? I'd really like to see the babies."
"Sure, you'll be welcome," Leslie said, and Christian nodded, chuckling. He left a few instructions with Ingrid, then led his wife and his niece out to the car and drove to the hospital along streets that were still damp from an afternoon rainstorm. The medical staff welcomed the Enstads, congratulated Christian and Leslie on the triplets, and brought all three of them back to see the babies. They had been brought into the hospital nursery and were sharing space with only two other babies, both of whom had apparently been born earlier that day, according to the cards on their bassinets. The attending nurse brought them in, seated them and gave each a baby to hold. This time Christian found himself holding Karina while Leslie cradled Tobias and Margareta stared down at Susanna in her arms. The princess seemed very uncertain, gaping openmouthed at the sleeping infant.
"It's not an alien, it's a baby," Christian couldn't resist joshing her. "For fate's sake, Magga, say hello to your cousin Susanna, and try to enjoy holding her. If you're going to be here all summer helping us, you'll have to get used to the feel and the sound and the mess of babies." He laughed hard enough at her dirty look to awaken Karina, who stared up at him as if in bewilderment.
Leslie giggled, gingerly lifting Tobias to her shoulder and rocking slowly back and forth. "Christian, my love, you have an audience."
Her husband peered down at his daughter and grinned. "Hallå då, Karina lilla. Do you remember me from last night, then, hmm? Yes, that's right, I'm your father. Are you feeling better, now that you have more room to move and you aren't bumping into Tobias and Susanna all the time, and kicking your poor mother to death?" Margareta stared at him in disbelief while Leslie chortled softly, cradling the back of Tobias' head.
"For fate's sake, Uncle Christian, who talks like that to a baby?" Margareta demanded in amazement.
"I do," Christian said easily, grinning. "Perhaps you will too, before very long. Truly, Magga, you astonish me. It's pretty clear you've spent little or no time helping to care for Lisi, or you might be more comfortable around the triplets. Be careful of Susanna, now…or would you rather Leslie held her? She can handle it, she has a good hold on Tobias."
"Might as well," Leslie remarked good-naturedly. "I'll have to get used to holding two at a time whenever I feed them anyway. Go ahead, Margareta, bring her over here if you want to, and put her here in my other arm." As she spoke, she shifted a stirring Tobias back into the crook of her right elbow. Margareta got up and awkwardly transferred Susanna into the lee of Leslie's left arm, then stepped back and smiled sheepishly.
"I should have remembered to bring my camera," she said a little wistfully. "Oh, I guess I'll get used to this over time. But they're so tiny, I'm afraid I'll break them."
Christian said with enormous amusement, "Believe me, Magga, babies aren't as fragile as they look. Not that you want to drop them, but they don't shatter like glass. Tell you what, suppose you go to the admissions desk and see if they'll let you use a phone to call Mr. Roarke. I don't know if he was able to come in and see the babies, or if they were willing to let him in; but if not, he'll have the chance while we're here." Margareta nodded agreement and left rather quickly, to the further amusement of Christian and Leslie, who then looked at each other and smiled with a new sense of wonder. "Amazing, that these three little scraps of life came about because of us," he observed, gazing at Karina again.
Leslie nodded and studied Tobias and Susanna at length, marveling over their little faces, miniature hands and downy hair. "They're miracles, all of them…more so because I honestly thought for so long that I couldn't have children." She blinked and smiled when both Susanna and Tobias opened their eyes and gazed up at her, in that expressionless way of newborns. "You guys will never know how happy you made Mommy, will you?"
Christian rose from his chair, straightened to his full height, looked over his three children and his wife, and smiled broadly. This was what he had once, so long ago, expected to have, gradually lost hope for, and finally given up on. Still holding Karina, he crouched in front of Leslie and returned the smile that she shifted from the babies to him. "One day they will," he promised gently. "I'll tell them so. And at the same time, I'll tell them how happy they—and especially you—have made me. Only a few years ago I thought I would never experience a moment like this. Now, thanks to you, I am. I'm certain there could be no greater love in the world than the love I feel for you."
"I felt the same way back then," Leslie said softly, "and I feel the same way now. You made it all possible for me. Thank you, Christian…"
He raised a teasing eyebrow and suggested, "Look at me a week from today and see if you're still as thankful, when we're dealing with crying and the coordination of feedings and the sleeplessness…and those inevitable soiled diapers."
"I'll be thankful enough," Leslie said with a smirk, "because you're going to be in this as deep as I am." They laughed softly, cuddled their triplets and gave some thought to the long summer ahead, of getting to know their children.
Next up: Christian and Leslie bring the triplets home and settle into a busy routine that leaves them oblivious to a young woman's loneliness and a teenager's misdirected crush…
